


Eyes Open

by knell



Category: MCU, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), infinity war - Fandom
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Pre-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Survivor Guilt, i love bruce banner and the only person who loves him more than me is his boyfriend thor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:28:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26514460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knell/pseuds/knell
Summary: Together at the end of it all, Bruce and Thor find one another―as they always seem to.
Relationships: Bruce Banner/Thor
Comments: 4
Kudos: 43





	Eyes Open

**Author's Note:**

> while i'm here posting other fics i have no personal attachment to, i figure i might as well toss this onto the pile. i wrote it ages ago, right after watching infinity war. it was just me guessing what the aftermath of thanos' attack would be like, which is. obviously not correct, but. it's just like a weird non-compliant character study now i guess. we can mark this as my first offense against d*sn*y. many more to follow, i'm sure.

Bruce's head is spinning.

It's _hot_ in the armor, and suddenly he can feel it all―the weight and the heat and the pieces that don't quite fit along the contours of his body, a joint in the metal that pinches. There's a deafening sound, a rush of blood and a staticky white-noise buzzing behind it. Vaguely, an alarm beeps as his comms with various people blip out of existence.

He stomps through the trees, out into the clearing where most of the fighting had been, mind racing faster than he can compete with. _Gone_. Just like that, on a gust of wind like dirt, like ashes, all of them. Some of them? His flickering heads-up display is showing locations, contacts nearby, people―Steve, Natasha, names that are familiar but do nothing to ease this panic he feels. T'challa's gone. The _king_ of Wakanda, which is another headache, heartache on its own.

Through the grog and the black spots clouding his vision, Bruce's hand finds and falters on the release mechanism a few times before he's able to squeeze his fingers tight, and the mech spits him out carelessly into the dry and bloodied grass.

He gasps in the mild air, sucking down breaths in an attempt to get the oxygen rushing back to his brain. Slowly, his hearing returns, his vision clears, the phantom weights leave his limbs. His legs are numb as he gathers himself up to his knees, and then sits down in a heap against the foot of the armor suit behind him, head lolling back. Sweat seals his clothes to his body, mats his hair and dirt and oil to his forehead. Something somewhere stings, like a fresh cut, though he can't bother to pull himself back up and open his eyes to check.

As his own head quiets, the immense volume of his surroundings begins to dawn on him. People are grieving, even as others gather weapons and help pull the injured to their feet. This is nothing like the aftermath in New York, there's no sense of accomplishment, no one to clap him exhaustedly on the back, no celebratory shawarma. And the escape from Sakaar (which― _feels like it happened just last week, by the way?_ ) had been explosions, adrenaline, wind rushing all around because he'd been _piloting a spacecraft_. In _space_ , with two _really_ strong and absurdly attractive Asgardians. Battling the will of ancient gods does numbers for confidence if you come out on top.

This is... something else. Bruce is no stranger to failure, to loss, to being a moment too late to a meeting or to a class, but this is _not_ the same thing. He senses that in everyone around him, as he blinks his eyes open and gazes heavily at the pale yellow of the sun, inhales shuddering breaths of iron and dirt. Sitting around like this is doing no good, he should―regroup? Clean up? Mildly, briefly, he wonders what the point is. But that isn't fair. The world isn't ending, only... half of it.

He attempts a manic little laugh, and it comes out in a way that convinces him of a bruised rib. He’s a _doctor_ , he should be checking on survivors, helping people, doing _anything_. Bruce stands suddenly, scrambling against the armor for something to lean on, hissing as pain shoots up his side. Just as he manages to find his core, a rhythmic pinging flares up from the Hulkbuster, a cheery tune almost like a ringtone. Bruce wants to climb back up there, knows there's realistically no way his jelly-legs could make it. He tries anyway, because if he can't be the Hulk, he can at least be stubborn.

Even straining on his toes, though, the comm device in the Hulkbuster's helmet is entirely out of reach. The thing is huge. He manages to tug on some loose wires, but that same fiery jolt of pain sears through his ribs and stings before he gets any closer, and Bruce crumples back to the grass with a sharp intake of breath. He's had worse, but something from his old first-aid training tells him not to push his luck. (Something smaller and persistent wonders again, _what's the point?_ )

The communicator rings, and he sits. He breathes slowly until he's nearly dozing, and he lets it ring, and ring...

  
  


Thor finds him, rather quickly considering how wide and busy this field is, people climbing out of craters and over hills that weren’t there before. He supposes the 11-foot tall exo-suit makes quite the landmark. The voice of the demigod shouting reaches him first, and Bruce has never been so relieved to see another person in his life. A little extra grateful that it's Thor, who rescued him from an alien planet. Thor, who rescued him from _himself_. Thor, who.... has....

"Two eyes," Bruce says, voice thick with wonder and the taste of blood. He blinks up at the other man, listening to the familiar, faint ringing of ozone off his hammer. ( _Ax?_ They have some catching-up to do.)

Thor blinks back, eyes mismatched in color. The scar is still there, and he's accumulated quite a few new cuts and bruises. Dried blood decorates the side of his face, but he’s _alive_. His choppy hair glistens with sweat. "Banner," is all he manages, kneeling down closer. His shoulders eclipse the sun, and his hand hovers near Bruce's arm, his head. Thor's brow creases and he stares hard at him, unshy of the eye contact. "I thought you were... You didn't answer when I called."

Bruce clears his throat, mouth dry like a desert, and he shifts to sit up a bit straighter. Ideally he'd stand again, but the weight of being strapped into the Hulkbuster’s lumbering frame for a long, sweaty afternoon has caught up to him and the ache keeps him anchored and compressed. "I couldn't, I'm..." He shakes his dizzy head a little, and looks away when Thor's gaze swings back to his own. Bruce asks the first thing that comes to his mind: "... Loki? Valkyrie? Are they...?"

It's a moment, but the silence and the clench of his jaw says it all. When the beat passes, he breathes out through his nose and grasps Bruce's bicep with one hand. “Let’s go. Do you need a doctor? Where did you get this... thing?" He nods his jaw at the Hulkbuster, trashed but still gleaming crimson and gold in the high evening sun.

Bruce uses Thor as a crutch, only groaning a little as his joints pop and his muscles stretch. "Ah... where do you think?" He looks around, though it does him little good. They're still on the outskirts of the makeshift battleground, most people having dragged themselves and each other back toward the city now. It's fine. He's sure Tony's fine. He's crafty. Lucky when it counts.

He has so much more to ask. About his eye and the ax and Asgard. How did he get here? Did he see it happen, or was he just out of sight like Bruce was? Is he okay― _will_ he be okay? What happens now? For the moment he keeps it shut up inside, if only to relish in the somber mood. Bruce isn't sure he has the words right now anyway. How could any words possibly encompass this feeling?

Answers would come, eventually. For now, he lets Thor lead him back inside city lines.

  


* * *

  


Resources are ample, and nobody wants for medicine or a warm meal. Soldiers and the rare citizen here and there who got caught in the crossfire are treated at emergency clinics under the careful guidance of Wakanda's medical technicians.

Bruce is bandaged, finger splinted, scrapes disinfected. He suspects a torn hamstring but pops two painkillers and keeps that to himself.

He and Thor are given clearance once they've been fully cleaned up, and they convene with what's left of the others. Steve, with eyes red and hard. Natasha, who keeps checking her phone. Rhodey, silent and distant. Bruce starts a list in his head of the missing ones, and it goes on and on and on until Thor puts a hand on his shoulder and pulls him away from his wandering thoughts. There's a brief meeting with government personalities, rife with stand-ins and substitutes and honorary titles. They sit around the table, weary, and nobody mentions it when the Queen is strikingly absent.

Among the decisions made, (the remains of) the Avengers are offered, at minimum, a week's respite if they so please. It's a tempting proposal for Bruce, who is in no mood to get packed back up into a little aircraft and make his way to another half-empty country. He has no one to check on, no calls to make like the others. Thor's here and Tony will check in when he can. Nobody left to account for. What can he do in New York? Can something like this be undone? 

No, he should stay, clear his mind, wait for his ears to stop ringing at the very least, for the adrenaline to leave his blood.

Steve stays until the aftermath is as clean as they can manage in a single long night, putting every ounce of himself into the effort. After that, he leaves with a hard-eyed nod and some stiff goodbyes. Natasha's gone long before that, in the night with Rhodey. There's a mumbled explanation of business to attend to, but Bruce doesn't care to press it.

"What about you?" he asks, nudging Thor with his elbow as they exit the conference hall. The whole meeting had taken less than an hour.

"Me?"

Bruce shrugs, conveying a silent _you know_. "What's next for Thor?"

He goes rigid, visibly. A moment passes where he says nothing and Bruce opens his mouth to apologize profusely, change the subject, excuse himself from the conversation. But it's only a brief silence, and Thor nudges Bruce back, looking at him sideways. "I go where you go."

Which is… unexpected. Bruce feels a flutter of shock and something else. A selfish little smile turns up his chapped lips for a moment, but he tempers his mood back into something befitting the situation.

"I've spent―" and here it comes, a little more open and raw than he's used to, but― "I've run away from a lot of things, my whole life. You know. And this is easily the single scariest thing I've lived through, but I... I don't feel like running. Right now. Maybe later, but right now I... would it be crazy to stay? For a few days." He smiles bitterly at himself, at the selfish part of his brain that just wants to take a nap.

Thor laughs, which is jovial and contagious enough that Bruce almost stops feeling completely guilty for everything that's happened. "My friend, that is _not_ crazy. I _grew up_ with crazy." He sobers, but the mood remains warm and he does that thing―claps a hand on Bruce's shoulder and grins. Somehow, that's enough.

  


* * *

  


Days pass in Wakanda slowly. Long, drawn-out afternoons that stretch into hours-long sunsets before the temperature drops and the stars emerge. Bruce has traveled enough for routine in a foreign country to come easily to him, and he spends his time offering what help he can. The knowledge that the doctors possess is intimidating, and he can hardly understand basic Wakandan medical technology, but a pop-up clinic on the edge of town lets him cast broken bones and organize prescriptions, at least. He'd thought the busy-work would ease his conscience, but there are people he sees with fractured knees and violent concussions and gouging bite-wounds so big that they could've been from lions and that sick, familiar wave of guilt pools up in the pit of his stomach.

Knowing Thor is out there like an active-duty soldier, keeping the perimeter safe, it offers him a small sense of comfort. But Bruce knows he should be out there too. Not like this, not as himself, in this shape that’s more suited to tediously dressing wounds and counting out dosages for injectable nano-antibiotics. Work that he has to force himself into, so he feels useful.

On the second night, Bruce sits on his hotel bed and clenches his jaw, his fists, breathing through his nose. “Come on,” he says, bordering on pleading. “Come _on_ , you big useless― _agh_!” The sharp spike of a headache kicks him from his thoughts, familiar enough that he knows it’s the Hulk pushing back at his attempts to pull him out. Not completely, not like last time, just enough to show Bruce that he’s _there_ and very much _not_ cooperating.

If he weren’t so frustrated and sick with himself, he almost might have the patience to feel a tinge of concern; this hasn’t happened before, not in all his years since the gamma incident. Once he’d finally, _finally_ gotten a hand on the wheel, once he’d had enough control to keep the other guy mostly in check, Bruce had been almost happy. For the first time in so long.

And now, the one thing he’s good at besides taking shorthand notes in pen, he can’t even do anymore. The Hulk fits (occasionally) into the Avengers’ repertoire, but Bruce? Humanity doesn’t need Bruce Banner, nuclear physicist, resident fuck-up.

He glances at the glass touch-screen panel by the door, and the display comes to life as if tracking his gaze. He gets a brief rundown of the forecast, a news blurb, and the time; only five, hardly time to call it a night. But, feeling defeated and a little self-destructive, he stays inside for the rest of the night, skipping dinner altogether. He doesn’t bother trying to block out his own thoughts.

  


* * *

  


The temporary clinics close their doors on the fourth afternoon. Nobody else needs urgent medical attention, not something they can’t get from a proper doctor or an ER anyway. He feels like a cartoon character, like he’s been fired and physically thrown through the door with nowhere to go. Rolling down the streets, spiraling.

It takes Bruce all of ten minutes to find Thor. They typically meet up after their respective shifts. Dinner at the mall’s food court or a stall on the street selling various fried vegetables. Bruce usually sits by while Thor recounts his day, offering half-eaten pizza slices and sips of chocolate milkshakes his way every once in a while. Those moments are almost… nice. Bruce appreciates the Asgardian more than he maybe feels comfortable letting on, but, in an unspoken way, he thinks Thor knows.

This time he finds him leaving their hotel’s gym, hair clean and wet from a shower, a towel over one shoulder. Wearing track pants and a tanktop that are both a bit too tight. Bruce runs into him almost literally, and as soon as Thor realizes what’s happening, he smoothly avoids the collision and somehow turns it into a huge one-armed bear hug. Damp and warm, the crisp tea tree scent of his shampoo.

“I was about to come find you!” Thor professes, ushering him into an elevator. “They told me about the healing centers closing today. Must be good news for you.”

Bruce frowns. “Why would it be good news?”

“You work so hard,” he says like it’s obvious, fiddling with the elevator’s touch-screen. “After everything, we all deserve a respite. And this place!” Thor spreads his arms and turns as the elevator passes a huge window, looking out on the downtown sector of the city. “This place is beautiful! The people, and the wilds.” When he looks back at Bruce, he’s grinning.

Weird how, for all that had happened to him, to everyone he’s loved―weird how he’s even still _functioning_. To see Thor tossing out smiles like someone who can afford to is heartening, even to Bruce’s ever-souring mood. If he looks close enough, he’ll see the dark circles under his eyes, he’ll see the way his self-inflicted schedule leaves time for almost no sleep, and no time for him to be alone with his thoughts. Thor is trying to find happiness where he can; Bruce can’t fault him for that.

He looks past Thor and tries to see what he does, anything but a world that’s lost a part of itself, its pieces pulled like teeth. When the elevator stops, Bruce drags his eyes away and follows Thor out. “It _is_ pretty,” he concedes, eventually. 

Thor digs around in his pockets as they round a corner, patting himself down until he finds the keycard to his room. He holds the door open for Bruce. “Would you like to wait here while I change?”

He shrugs, meandering inside as Thor beelines for the bathroom, and the closet he knows is attached. Their rooms are identical, down to the unmade beds and crumpled sheets; the scratchy decorative pillows on Thor’s bed are still there, clearly having been slept on instead of set aside. Bruce shakes his head fondly as he takes a seat on the corner of the mattress.

For a moment, all he hears is rustling fabric and hangers clacking together. Since they’ve been here, they’ve both done a little shopping. It all feels… very strange, especially wandering through department stores with maybe his only remaining friend. But Bruce couldn’t stay buttoned up in that same shirt he was wearing during the fight, and not only because it had been pretty ruined, all things considered. He’d thrown out everything he had been wearing at the first opportunity. Thor hadn’t had much aside from his armor to begin with, and now, when he emerges from the bathroom, he’s wearing a fitted pair of jeans and holding two shirts up.

He pauses in the doorway when he sees Bruce, lost in his thoughts.

Carefully, in a voice he doesn’t use often, Thor says, “Banner… I’ve been meaning to ask how you felt, about everything that has happened. With Thanos.” His voice bitters on the name.

Bruce’s brow creases, muscles instinctively tensing. How does he feel? Angry. Always angry, even if only a little, but never enough, never in the _right away._ Bruce opens his mouth but nothing comes out.

“We haven’t spoken about it at all since it happened. I think people don’t want to.” Distantly, Bruce sees him cross the room, feels the mattress dip with his added weight. “But it’s bothering me all the time, and I can see how it bothers you as well. You think too much, my friend. Unburden yourself.”

Bruce’s fingers unfold on his lap, fists unclenching as he stares down at them. He’s always been too easy to read; he might as well be honest. Thor deserves that much from him, at the very least. “I feel… inadequate. Weak. Like I don’t deserve to be here, in this hotel having food brought up to me and a walk-in closet and―everything.”

“Weak? What…?” Clear confusion twists his words, Thor shaking his head and the bed with it. “‘Strongest Avenger’, remember?”

He rolls his eyes, more callous than he means. He’ll apologize for this later, once it’s all out between them; Bruce is no stranger to cleaning up after his own bad temper. “I mean _weak_ , like weakest link, like all I can do is get in the way, screw things up for everyone else. I needed a _machine_ to get somewhere where I could make a difference, and even that didn’t matter. I mean―” Cutting himself off, Bruce notices his nails biting into the flesh of his own wrist so hard they leave behind angry red marks. Thor, beside him, is silent, waiting.

"I could have done something," he declares, emphatic, hitting a fist to his own chest and pushing until he really feels it. "I didn't try hard enough. I could have pushed harder―I _should_ have pushed harder. This is just as bad as losing control. Either way the Hulk has the wheel, either way people are dying and Bruce _fucking_ Banner isn't taking responsibility." His next breath comes in ragged, and he clenches his jaw at the prickling he feels in his eyes, the dry, choking feeling that climbs its way up his throat. "Look at me," he says, spreading his arms limply. "I'm fine. I shouldn't _be_ fine. I should be _dead_ , or huge and stupid and green with Thanos' _head_ in my _fist_."

Thor grabs him, has gotten progressively nearer and nearer without Bruce noticing until he's holding his head between both hands and pressing for eye contact. "Banner," he says, voice clear-cut and warm. His fingers scratch at Bruce's hair, thumb strokes his stubbled cheek in an attempt to be comforting. It has some sort of effect, anyway. Bruce crashes back into himself like a wave, even before Thor leans in and pushes a kiss to his forehead. "This wasn't you. We are lucky to be alive; Thanos is stronger than both of us, even the large green one. I won’t let you blame yourself for being unable to do the impossible."

Bruce manages to move past the shock, brushes the kiss off as Asgardian sentimentality and shrugs Thor's hands away. He's not used to this―that conversation with Tony in the lab, ages ago right before the New York incident. He still thinks about that sometimes and the discomfort that came with letting someone console him. Hulk stuff is personal. When someone _wants_ to talk to him about it, it usually isn’t to offer comfort, to sympathize.

"If I can't help people, can't do the _one_ thing everyone keeps the Hulk around for, why am I even..." Bruce aborts that thought with a sigh, and feels something heavy leave him on the exhale. Thor’s hand is on his knee, comforting. When he continues, he's calmer. "You know, while we were up there on Sakaar? There was some disagreement with the government. Didn’t want help. They broke up the team―the Avengers, I mean, they're just―" He pantomimes an explosion with both hands, Thor's eyes tracking the movement in surprise.

“They broke up? Like a musical group?”

Bruce blinks, bemused. “I said the same thing.”

"People who are too stupid to know they need help still need help," Thor reroutes the conversation, stating his piece like it’s obvious.

It gets Bruce to smile a bit. "That's an arrogant way to put it."

"I only mean―"

"I know."

"And you and I, we don't argue like the rest of them." Thor waves his hand through the air and rolls his eyes. "We’re, like, _really_ friends.”

Bruce laughs a watery laugh, but it’s true. Thor has never taken him at anything but face value, and there’s no judgement in the way he interacts with Bruce, even before when he was constantly toeing the line between himself and the _other guy_. He can only imagine what kind of awful monsters there must have been on Asgard for Thor not to be disgusted by him.

“I know,” he says again, an unbidden fondness in his voice. The moment is disrupted by his stomach growling. “Er… come on, finish getting ready. I’ll treat you to some sliders or something.”

Thor perks up instantly, executing a perfect knee jump and bounding back to the closet like an overexcited puppy. “I love those tiny burgers,” he proclaims a moment later when he returns, haphazardly clad in a t-shirt just as tight as the tank top from before. “Last time, I finished twenty-three before I began to feel sick. This time, I swear to you I will beat my own record.”

“Uh… well, I’m rooting for you, man,” Bruce promises, patting his arm as they leave the room. The grin he gets in return is so bright he has to look away.

  


* * *

  


On the sixth day, there is a celebration. A city-wide festival to remember the dead, and rejoicing in those who are still here. It seems like a government decision, but nobody complains when the decorations are strung up between buildings and people start to wear colors again. It’s nice, makes him almost feel normal again. He forgets about himself for the evening and wanders the city, trailing vaguely behind Thor and watching him interact with the locals. 

Early in the night, they have dinner in a dim restaurant underneath a tea shop. Fireworks go off in the background, muted through the walls and under the music and chatter. Something about it feels… familiar. Bruce is hit with a sudden wave of… not nostalgia but something similar, as if remembering something from a life that could have been, but never quite was. It comes to him even at the taste of his ice water, Thor downing what must be his fifteenth beer of the evening; his eyes are clear as ever when they meet Bruce’s over the red candlelight.

He grins, wipes the foam from his mouth. “There is a similar celebration for my people. Honoring the fallen, a feast that goes on for days, lights in the skies. This night reminds me of home,” he says, solemn and still smiling. 

Bruce can’t find a response to that right away, so he pokes a bit at his starter, a light and leafy dish that smells lemony. After a moment, he clears his throat and nods, the awkward nerd side of him speaking up to slice through the silence. “Uh, yeah… it’s a pretty popular practice in a lot of Earth cultures. Celebrations of life. It… helps with the grieving process. Easier for the living to move on. Nicer to think back on than periods of mourning, which can lead a lot of people into episodes or severe depression, and, uh…” He clears his throat again. “Anyway.”

“Banner? You’re unwell.” Touching, in a way. Thor watches him closely, unsurprised, understanding.

“No. No, I’m just.” He pauses, takes another long sip of his water, feels it sharp and cold along the walls of his stomach. Bruce is hot, suddenly, inexplicably, clammy like he’s stuffed back into that heavy armor, unused to every movement and the weight of his own limbs. 

It passes like a wave of vertigo, and he looks back up at Thor and opens his mouth―

Their waiter materializes and sets both dishes down softly, smiles. “Anything else?”

Bruce shakes his head as Thor thanks her, beaming at the prospect of more food. She rolls her eyes kindly and leaves with a gentle bow. Thor is already stuffing a napkin into his collar. “You know,” he says, knife and fork in hand like a caricature of a king, instead of the actual one he is, “lying on Asgard can be punishable by death. Under the right circumstances. Or the wrong ones.” He makes pointed eye contact as he bites into a kebab.

Somehow, that makes Bruce laugh. He wonders briefly how many lies Thor’s father and brother alone told to anyone who would listen, but keeps the thought to himself. Watching Thor makes him hungry, so he unravels his silverware and wills his appetite back from wherever it went. 

After a quiet moment and a few spoonfuls, Bruce says, uncarefully, in a breath, “I don’t know where I’m going to go. After this.” He doesn’t mean to, not really. He’s had enough being a burden for several lifetimes, but the confession leaves his mouth before he can stuff it full of rice, and even before the words have settled in the air between them, Bruce can feel the ugly coil of guilt in his stomach. 

Because he can go _anywhere_. There is nothing he’s been tasked with looking over, except maybe himself sometimes, when he’s bigger and greener and a little (just a little) more unstable. He has no kingdom, no lives in particular to mourn the way Thor does. Thor, whose home has been stripped from him twice now in such quick succession, so violently, despite his iron will and his desire to be helpful, to be always good.

When he finishes spiraling, Thor pulls him from another panic with a hand on his. Bruce’s grip, shaky around the spoon he’d been wielding, loosens until it’s gone completely. Thor folds their fingers together across the table, awkward and a little sweaty from one side, but the gesture is there.

“Sorry,” he says, voice rough.

Thor sighs, heavy with it. He brings his other hand to the middle, places it solemnly on top of their weird little hand-holding pile now. He has to nudge away the tealight candle to make room. “Always so sorry, Banner.” He’s shaking his head and smiling quizzically, tracing mindless circles into Bruce’s knuckles with his thumb. Gazing, actually _gazing_ at him.

If his breath catches at that, neither of them mention it. “This is supposed to be a celebration,” Brue says, calmer now, tempered and more level-headed. These come-and-go waves of emotion are starting to be a bit embarrassing, even for him. After careful consideration, he doesn’t pull his hand from Thor’s.

“Well,” Thor says, as if Bruce had asked him something, “I think the reason you can’t celebrate is because you can’t get out of that head of yours. Drink.” A command, as he frees a hand and uses it to pass his beer across the table, like an offering. Bruce eyes it a little warily, half-empty as it is. “Banner, have I ever been wrong before?” Projecting innocence in a way that makes Bruce’s heart lurch in his chest.

Oh, he thinks dumbly. _Oh_. And he drinks, Thor grinning winsomely as he signals for another round.

  
  


When he wakes, Thor is still asleep across the room from him in a chair. Head lolled over the back, legs stretched out like he spent the night waiting at someone’s hospital bedside. Bruce feels weird about that, feels a little more cared-for than he, well… _cares for_. He excavates himself from the heavy comforter and hovers quietly at the foot of Thor’s hotel bed, uncertain.

He’d had a _really_ unexpectedly good time last night. Like, the kind of mindless fun he can only remember experiencing a handful of times around his college years. Even with his notoriously bad rap with alcohol. Bruce remembers it in clips, like fastforwarding through footage and pausing on interesting frames. He remembers catching the end of the fireworks display and people in the open-air market doing face paint and live music out by a waterfall. He particularly remembers the weight of Thor’s hand in his own for most of the night.

Bruce stays long enough to pull the throw blanket off the loveseat (why Thor didn’t sleep there is beyond him) and to drape it over his sleeping friend. On his way out, he catches a brief glimpse of his own reflection, of smudged, indecipherable face paint across his cheeks and forehead. Before he can reel it in, he lets out a little surprised laugh at his own expense. Thor rolls over in his sleep, and Bruce is gone.

In his own room, after a quick shower, he gets a video-call on the touch-panel by the door. 

“Good morning, Dr. Banner. An aircraft departs for JFK at noon,” the acting representative tells him. “It isn’t mandatory, of course, though it is complimentary. Wakanda thanks you for everything you have done.” She salutes him, arms crossed over her chest, and Bruce nods awkwardly, still half-dressed with a toothbrush in his mouth. The feed cuts out with little fanfare.

With little else to do, he packs his meager belongings, checking the time every few minutes. At ten, breakfast is brought to his room, “Courtesy of the Asgardian,” the room service attendant announces as he accepts the tray. It’s piled high with more food than he could hope to eat even over three days, but he puts down as much of it as he can. He’s going to miss the rich coffee and the savory pancakes. 

The rest of the morning passes in a strange kind of rush, hotel buzzing with activity as people prepare to leave. As he navigates his way to the landing zone, sees the small plane loading up luggage and passengers, it strikes him again how normal it all feels, how okay he feels, considering. The world is in shambles, most of the people he’s ever known are presumably dead, and the entire planet―perhaps the entire known galaxy―is completely open for any kind of alien attack; and all he can think about is whether or not they have Diet Coke stocked on the plane.

With that train of thought, though, the calm starts to leave him. Predictably, the moment he sits down, his breath comes a little quicker, his brow pinches down in familiar worry. The breakfast in his stomach begins to turn sour.

He shouldn’t go. 

Maybe he should stay. 

He could―find work, or god knows he could learn something. Never too late for that eighth PhD, he thinks a little wildly, doing and undoing the seatbelt across his lap. Because what’s Bruce gonna do back in the states, in New York where nobody thinks on him fondly, or the west coast where so many memories remain, waiting to dredge back up those feelings he fought for years to free himself from? It’s easier, once lost, to stay that way. Pick up a new language, busy himself with menial, little things every day. Things that don’t matter. Things that won’t end with crumbling skyscrapers, aircrafts losing altitude and bursting on impact against an icy ocean, and so much blood.

Decisively, he clicks the seatbelt off and stands, wavering on the spot. In a rush, he goes. Squeezes himself down the aisle, _excuse me_ s and _sorry_ s falling flat even to his own ears. Other passengers are looking at him, the few people on board who have business in America. Politicians and academics, mostly. People he hasn’t fit in with for _years_. He keeps going.

Thor’s there, because of course he is. Boarding last, eclipsing the sun, just like before when Bruce was laying there in the dust with cracked ribs and a sprained wrist and a million questions on his lips. Bruce pushes past someone, and Thor catches him by both arms halfway through the doors of the aircraft.

“Where are you going?” And that’s real worry, there in his mismatched eyes. “I’m here,” he says in response to Bruce’s clammy hands and his racing heart, his restlessness as he tries to free himself from Thor’s grip. “Hey―”

“I have to go. I have to go, I’m sorry, I can’t go, man, I’m not ready.” Gibberish, words that mean nothing, not really. Bruce tries to move down the steps, back to the tarmac, but Thor shakes him a little and presses him in close against the tiny exit. Crowds into his space and grounds him with his touch. “Thor, I don’t know about this―I thought I could do it, but they don’t need me,” Bruce says, gesturing back in the plane as if Natasha and Steve are there, waiting with their pitiful stares when they think he isn’t looking. The thought makes his stomach churn.

“Banner― _Bruce_ , stop. Calm down, I’m here.” Thor holds him like he expects him to explode. Depressurizes his muscles, his nerves, watching Bruce close all the while. “What happened?” he asks eventually, when his grip has loosened and Bruce has stopped trying to run. “I thought you said you were okay.”

He is. “I am,” he says. “I’m fine.” It’s a lie, and it’s obvious. Thor’s frown plummets. Something about that makes Bruce ache, oddly. “I’m not going.”

“What? Of course you are. Look, I’ll be with you the whole time, I’ll hold your hand.”

 _That_ ’s embarrassing, but Thor says it sincerely without an ounce of humor and Bruce can’t find it in him to pull away when Thor stays true to his word, squeezing his fingers earnestly. “What are you worried about?”

Everything. “Nothing. Nothing, it’s just that I can do more here. I’m just a guy, I can’t… The Avengers broke up anyway, right? So I’m not… there’s nothing there. For me.”

“I’ll be there,” he promises, voice tinted a shade he can’t quite place. In the stunned silence, Thor turns in to press his lips along the inside of Bruce’s wrist. Once, twice, and a long pause. “You don’t have to be anything but yourself,” he says in the space between them, “Not for me.” Thor drags the kiss up near his palm and Bruce follows the motion with wide eyes, unable to protest the scratching of Thor’s beard there because he’s too taken aback to do anything but stare. The moment extends, almost too tender to be real. Thor kisses his thumb, and between his calloused fingers, along the ridges of each knuckle. He does all of this and finally, _finally_ looks up at Bruce, lips pressed to the side of his hand.

“Thor― _buddy_ ―”

“Was that alright?” Thor asks, ever the gentleman. He’s very close, and nearly grinning. Bruce can feel electric heat, like a storm waits just below his skin.

Experimentally, braver than he feels, he draws Thor in a little nearer, slips his wrist from that gentle grip to push his fingers through the buzzed hair above Thor’s ear, and he leans into the touch like a cat, and then a little further. Bruce double checks that this is really happening with a bewildered glance up. Thor isn’t grinning anymore, but he isn’t leaning away either, certainly not. His eyes are on him, soft, and he holds his breath. Their gazes lock, and Bruce panics; forces himself forward before he can talk himself out of it. Their lips crush together, and he squeezes his eyes shut instinctively.

They break apart a long moment later with great effort, hyper-aware of a flight attendant hovering nearby, impatient and awkward. Thor clears his throat, looking very much like a man who has just been pushed up against an airplane and kissed in front of a small crowd. “So, does this mean―? Shall we…?” He gestures toward the interior of the plane.

“Y-yes, I think―sorry,” Bruce says, fixing his crooked glasses and nodding with a flushed face at the flight attendant, letting himself be dragged back inside by the hand.

They find seats near the back, listen to the pilot over the speaker, snap their seatbelts into place. Diet Coke is delivered, and just so many packs of tiny pretzels that Thor tears into instantly. Bruce finds his smile silhouetted against the window as the plane takes off, bewildered gaze meeting warm eyes, each of them a different color. He realizes he never asked about that, or the ax, or much of anything else really. Thor’s salt-covered fingers tangle with his on their shared armrest, and Bruce’s heart kicks up into his throat before he can say anything at all.

There would be plenty of time for questions later, and for that, at least, he is thankful.


End file.
